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World Cup could launch U.S. soccer

The enthusiasm and interest in the World Cup has the U.S. mulling whether to bid to host the 2026 event.

Go for it, I say.

Twenty years ago this month, the U.S. hosted its only World Cup. I’ll never forget it. Covering some games in Orlando’s Citrus Bowl Stadium was an unforgettable experience. On the Fourth of July in 1994, the Netherlands beat Ireland 2-0 in the Round of 16.

The game was in mid-afternoon. That stadium offers little break from sun. Imagine the temperature. It felt like 200 degrees in the parking lots. But the atmosphere inside was electric. Sauna and all.

Cynics had decried the venues. The popular view was how could the Americans, who don’t even care about soccer, host a World Cup?

Well, total attendance that year was 3.57 million. The average attendance of games across nine U.S. stadiums was 68,991. Those two figures remain the highest in World Cup history.

Two years later, the former Pensacola Soccer Complex hosted one of Holland’s national boys teenage teams in an exhibition against a U.S. team. Two Dutch journalists traveled here and were genuinely concerned about soccer’s impact in this country.

They wanted to know why our country wasn’t more soccer crazy. I explained how deep rooted American football was in the U.S. at the high school, collegiate and NFL levels. Then, I asked them, excluding soccer, what are the next most popular sports in Holland?

Men’s volleyball. Badminton. Field hockey, they said.

Those sports, of course, barely register in American sports fandom. There was no diplomatic way to explain badminton is a game we play in our backyard in flip flops with family and friends at cookouts.

It was explained how the USA’s Big Four are the NFL, MLB, the NBA and the NHL in that order. High in the mix, of course, the enormous popularity of college football and basketball.

It is so different here. Always will be. They understood. They just wanted soccer to grow in the U.S. to complete the world.

Maybe it has. Time will tell on the impact of the U.S. run in the World Cup. But the numbers are undeniable.

Tuesday’s U.S.-Belgium game generated the highest Nielsen rating (9.6) for a World Cup game in the U.S. The viewership on ESPN was the network’s highest for a non-football event in its history. It averaged 16.5 million viewers.... in late afternoon.

Another 5.1 million watched on the Spanish-language Univision, now widely available. The numbers are blowing past the World Series and NBA Finals. And remember, those events are in prime time at night.

Whether this is going to mean anything for soccer’s future growth in the U.S. is unclear.

But for an event this big, once every four years, the U.S. is more than capable of joining the party.